Environment

In the six months since state and federal officials decided to use the biggest housing recovery in modern history to rewrite the nation's disaster playbook, neighborly networks and organized charity have buoyed disheartened Texans on the coast.

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Texas voters’ approval toward the federal government’s response to Hurricane Harvey fell since we last checked in October, from 57 percent to 48 percent, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

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The U.S. Department of Energy's inspector general says that a now-bankrupt company behind a defunct West Texas "clean coal" power plant spent more than $1.3 million in federal stimulus funds on things like spa service, alcohol, first-class travel and limousine services.

 

 

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Though Folo Media is suspending its operations, Texas Tribune reporter Morgan Smith will forge ahead solo, covering poverty and inequity across Texas with a special focus on her home city of San Antonio.

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Just weeks after false reports of a nuclear missile terrified Hawaiians, an erroneous tsunami warning was sent to individuals in Texas and along the East Coast.

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Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio have found that development along the Blanco River intensified the impact of a 40-foot wall of water that gushed down the waterway on Memorial Day weekend 2015. 

 

 

 

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Kathleen Hartnett White, who once headed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, may no longer be in line to serve as a top White House environmental official.

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The Tribune teamed up with PBS NewsHour to tell the story of one Houston family trying to make their flood-damaged home livable again while they wait for federal aid that's been too slow to arrive.

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Just five months after the monster storm gave Texas its wettest month in history, much of the state is now in a drought — including areas that saw historic flooding. 

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Lawyers spent almost an hour in the Texas Supreme Court arguing whether Laredo’s 2015 ban on plastic grocery bags was illegal. The future of bag bans in cities across the state could hinge on the case. 

 

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Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria combined with devastating Western wildfires and other natural catastrophes to make 2017 the most expensive year on record for disasters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Monday.

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Last year saw the most destructive Atlantic hurricane season on record. How did we get here? We investigated by wading through the damage left by Hurricane Harvey in Houston.

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Relatives of inmates have reported that more than 30 Texas prisons lacked adequate heating during the state's recent cold snap. A Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman said Wednesday that all prison units were “operating with adequate heating.”

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The Lone Star State's shoreline is experiencing one of the highest rates of land loss of any coastal area in the country thanks to a combination of subsidence, sea level rise and storm surges.

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Two Tribune reporters who covered Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath discuss the historic storm's financial impact, recovery efforts and what citizens and state officials have learned in the wake of the devastating storm.

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Revisit our investigation of how thousands of "rogue releases" — when industrial polluters spew noxious chemicals into the air during malfunctions and other unplanned incidents, exceeding permit limits — occur in Texas each year.

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Months after Hurricane Harvey rainfall triggered the leak of hazardous waste, new scrutiny is being paid to a company's plan to develop a landfill outside Laredo near a floodplain.

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Two independent research teams have reported that the deluge from Hurricane Harvey was significantly heavier than it would have been before the era of human-caused global warming. 

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Clear Lake City officials say they hope the project will serve as an example of how communities can take matters into their own hands as they await the completion of large-scale flood control projects. 

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Kathleen Hartnett White, the former head of the Texas Council on Environmental Quality and President Trump’s pick to serve as his top White House environmental official, faced tough questioning at her confirmation hearing Wednesday.

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